The Killer Sock
by Rhi
Summary: "I don't want you to panic, Arn, but it does appear there's a very tiny possibility that there may very well in all likelihood possibly be a non-human life form on board." "You mean like last time, when it turned out to be one of Lister's socks?"


**The Killer Sock**

Lister drifted through the realm of unconsciousness, dreams idly drifting to and fro in his mind. One rebounded off the inside of his skull and lodged in his cerebral cortex. 

"You know I could_ never_ love you," said Kristine Kochanski, looming up over him, her forehead seeming a lot bigger than the rest of her body, probably because it had an H on it.

"Smeg off, Rimmer," Lister heard himself say. He was vaguely aware of being tied, spread-eagled, to something cold and hard, but he wasn't sure what it was. 

"But I'm not Rimmer," said Kochanski innocently. Out of the corner of his eyes, Lister saw her reach over and pick something shiny and decidedly sharp off a tray. It was then Lister realized: he was tied to a bed in the medi-bay. The bright overhead lights had momentarily blinded him.

"Yes you are," said Lister. 

"I'm not," insisted Kochanski. She was turning the wicked-looking instrument - it looked a bit like a scalpel, except bigger - over and over in her hands, with a sort of sick, focused fascination. She turned her beautiful eyes to Lister, and what he saw there nearly made him scream aloud - those were _Rimmer's_eyes.

"Well, then explain why Someone to Watch Over Me is playing in the background?" asked Lister, trying to quell the irrational fear that welled up in his heart. Kochanski would never hurt him, would she? _But Rimmer would_, his rebelling mind insisted.

Kochanski/Rimmer said nothing. She moved the scalpel-thing closer to his chest. Lister began to struggle, but his bonds were too tight for him to break. He screamed out loud as Kochanski/Rimmer plunged the instrument into his chest. Before his eyes, the love of his life morphed into his hologramatic roommate.

"It's Kochanski's body. It's Kochanski's voice. I mean, what's the difference?" Rimmer's face filled Lister's field of vision, the man's voice turning into an indistinct roar. Lister screamed again as Rimmer plunged his hand into his chest.

"Aaargh!" Lister yelled as he woke up. He rolled off his bunk, hitting the floor with a THUD. He lay there, panting, until Holly's voice broke through his sweating, post-nightmarish terror.

"Emergency! Emergency! There's an emergency going on!"

Lister clambered to his feet and wiped the sweat out of his eyes, glancing over at where Holly's face materialized on the screen. The computer's visage looked faintly worried, but also as if her mind wasn't all there. This was usually the case. "What's going on, Hol?" asked Lister, forcing his voice to remain steady.

"There's an emergency going on," repeated Holly, glancing at Lister. "Gordon Bennett, Dave, at least get some clothes on."

Lister glanced down at himself. "I am wearing clothes," he said, petulantly. "I'm wearing my boxers."

"They've definitely seen better days," said Holly. Lister grumbled and pulled on a pair of pants that were in slightly better condition than his underwear. 

"So, what's the emergency, Hol?" Lister asked, getting himself a beer to calm his nerves. That dream had really freaked him out. "It isn't another stasis leak or anything, is it?"

"No, it's nothing like that," Holly replied. "I don't want you to panic or anything, okay, Dave? You'd best sit down for this."

"What is it, Hol?" queried Lister impatiently, sipping at the froth from his beer. He wasn't in the mood for Holly's senile dawdling. "Just come out with it, okay? It can't be _that_ bad."

"There's another life form on board," said Holly flatly. "It doesn't conform to any known DNA sequence, and from what I can tell, it could be dangerous."

Lister nearly spat out his beer. That was just what he needed to start the day - a hostile alien on board. He set down his beer on the nearby table. "Where is it?"

"It's somewhere on the cargo decks. Hold on a tic, I'll just pinpoint its location." Holly's face faded off the screen, but returned a second later. "It's disappeared!" she said.

"What? So now a murderous, homicidal alien is trooping around the ship undetected?" Lister grabbed a shirt from his laundry basket, sniffed it, and put it on. "Find it!"

"Oh, right," said Holly a moment later, relieved. "Sorry. I was looking at the catering decks. Yeah, it's on the cargo deck. It doesn't appear to be moving. You better go check it out."

"What's going on?" said Rimmer groggily as he woke up, swinging his long legs off his bunk. He peered blearily at the monitor. "Holly?"

"There's some sort of a non-human entity on board," said Lister, finishing off his beer and tossing the empty can into the bin. "It's somewhere on the cargo deck. Looks like we've got to go check it out." He pulled on a pair of relatively clean socks (that is to say, they weren't completely solid yet) and buckled up his boots. "Where's Kryten and the Cat?"

"They're on their way here," said Holly.

As Lister was pulling on his abundantly decorated leather jacket and cap, a disgruntled-looking Cat and a concerned-looking Kryten shuffled in. 

"What's going on? Microwave-head here woke me up, and I was _right_ in the middle in a very important four hours of beauty sleep!" the Cat said, glaring at Holly. 

"There's an alien on board," said Rimmer, but he looked excited about it. _Maybe it can give me a new body! _He thought, excited. "Holly, give me a new uniform," he said to the computer, and seconds later, he was decked out in his horrendous, shiny, emerald-green outfit. He tucked his hat under his arm. "We better get the bazookoids and backpacks, just in case."

"Are you sure that's _wise_, sir?" Kryten asked. 

Lister was busy stuffing a few supplies into his backpack. He threw it over his shoulder. "What else is there to do, Krytes? Cat, go get your stuff."

Lister glanced over at his assembled crewmates. "We're going alien-hunting."

When the four companions stumbled out of the Xpress lift an hour later, outfitted with backpacks and bazookoids (all except Rimmer, who couldn't hold a bazookoid on account of being dead, and Kryten, who held the Psi-scan) everyone felt rather stiff. The adrenaline and excitement of possibly having an alien on board had worn off during the sixty minutes of cheesy elevator music.

"Careful," said Rimmer as they edged forward. "It could be hiding behind any one of these boxes. It could leap out and attack us at any moment, and I for one do _not_ have 'Get Eaten' on my To-Do list."

"Relax, Rimmer," said Lister, cocking his bazookoid. He winced as the sound echoed loudly down the rows and rows of boxes. "It could even turn out to be a _friendly_ alien," he assured, but not very confidently.

"Have we _ever_ met a 'friendly' alien?" hissed Rimmer. "Every single potentially friendly alien we've met hasn't actually been friendly at all. In fact, most of them have tried to kill us."

"Need I point out, Sirs," said Kryten politely, "that we have not actually run into that many aliens?"

"Shut up, you useless pile of nuts and bolts," snapped Rimmer. He hated being proved wrong, especially by a mechanoid, the only person (machine) on the entire ship who actually had a lower rank than him.

"What's your scanner say, Krytes?" whispered Lister. He leapt around the corner, bazookoid ready to fire. There was nothing there. He breathed a sigh of relief as the others took up the rear. Their footsteps sounded unnaturally loud in the silent cargo bay. Lister glanced backwards at the Cat, who had put down his bazookoid and was currently grooming himself in a mirror. "Cat! Stay alert. The alien could jump out at us at any moment and rip our faces off."

The Cat looked concerned at this. "I can't let that happen! My face is too beautiful to be ripped off." He put away his mirror and comb and picked up his bazookoid, growling at the shadows. 

"We're getting close, Sir," said Kryten, consulting his beeping scanner. 

"May I suggest a course of action if we run into a nine-foot-tall, slime-dripping, pus-excreting monster?" suggested Rimmer. Lister peered into the shadows, not even bothering to glance back at the hologram.

"Yeah, what?"

"Run!"

"You're a cowardly weasel, Rimmer."

"No I'm not," insisted Rimmer. "I just have a healthy instinct for survival."

"There!" exclaimed Kryten, pointing at a shadow. Lister let loose a volley of bazookoid fire that ripped into the offending box, scattering debris everywhere. "Or quite possibly not," Kryten conceded. "Sorry, sirs. I thought I saw it."

"Next time pay more attention, you malfunctioning piece of junk," hissed Rimmer, who had nearly soiled his hologramatic uniform. "We only have a limited supply of ammo, you know!"

"Sorry, sir," Kryten squeaked meekly.

Lister sighed, inching forward carefully. "Don't apologize to him, Kryten. Anyone could have made that mistake."

"No, only idiotic mechanoids with a rusting sanity chip could make that mistake," said Rimmer scathingly. Lister ignored him.

"We're almost there," Kryten said.

"I hope it isn't a slime-dripping monster," the Cat contributed, "Slime and this suit _so_ do not match."

"What do you think, Hol?" Lister asked the watch on his wrist. Holly's face materialized on the small screen.

"I think you need to pluck your nostril hairs again, Dave," she said.

"No, about the monster. Are we getting close?" Lister rolled his eyes.

"Oh, _that_," replied Holly. "Yeah. It should be around that corner there."

Lister leapt around the corner with a war yell, bazookoid ready to fire. The others followed suit, apart from Rimmer, who peeked cautiously into the corridor after several seconds and no huge explosion. He gaped openly, the rest of his body finally following him around the corner to stand next to a dumbstruck Lister.

"That's it, Hol?" Lister asked, stunned. "That's the monster?"

"How was I supposed to know?" scoffed the computer. "I'm not perfect, you know!"

"It's a sock!"

"I didn't recognize its DNA! Genetically speaking, it _is_ some kind of alien monster."

All four people stared openly at the shriveled yellow sock lying forlornly in the middle of the floor.

"I must have dropped it on the way to the laundry deck," supplied Kryten helpfully. Rimmer scoffed and span on his heel, walking off in the opposite direction, muttering loudly to himself.

"Bunch of gimboids..." 

The Cat turned and followed him. "I missed out on half an hour of beauty sleep for _this_?" he mumbled.

"I'm going back to bed." Lister turned around and marched away from the sock, his bazookoid lowered dejectedly to his side. Kryten followed a moment later after picking up the odorous sock.

"Well, at least you can't say life is boring with Holly, sir," he said once he'd caught up to Lister. Lister snorted.

"Life with Holly? Boring? It's more like a frontal lobotomy."

In the darkness, the Sock Monster cackled. They'd never find out where all the socks went in the wash. 


End file.
